If it were not for the help of modern medicine, I would not have celebrated my 54th birthday. 54! I have lived longer than my parents who died at 52 and 53. No rationale to explain why it was important to me to outlive them, but it was.
I made it passed 54 birthdays. I have been able to witness my face change as the gravity of our earth pulls without mercy causing me to agree that plastic surgery might not be such an over-the-top procedure of self-consumed vanity after all.
My birthday came without a lot of fanfare, but to me it was the greatest of days. And with the greatest of days come the other days where I am tired of worrying about dying. Every day it seems in social media someone has died. Poof! They are extinguished from existence. We are all so fragile.
Death is final. It is not like losing a job where you get to pull yourself together and start fresh and find an employer who sees something in you that others did not.
A person dying cannot say, “Hold up, I need a few more days”. Death comes and overtakes you without an apology—not that it can give one—and without any concern for what you needed to finish before your heart no longer beats.
I know death is all part of the circle of life and all that soft language that makes death a lighter subject to talk about. But, the unfairness of how some get to live into their 90’s and others don’t get to see their first birthday is simply extreme no matter what kind of reason some people try to attach to it.
Knowing I am dying—not because I am alive but because I have a terminal illness, does make me think sometimes that my exercise routine that I started in August is a waste of time. I mean, I could be doing something else with that time, but I keep doing it anyway for the “just in case I keep living” scenario or maybe it is partly because I want to pretend I am fine.
Lately, the metastatic social groups on Facebook I follow have caused me to want to stop looking at my newsfeed. All the sad stories of struggle and sadness can be overwhelming. Since 2013, I have consumed as much information as I could about my disease, learning from others in my desire to keep hope alive. In the beginning I jumped right in and embraced those stories and let them be a part of my life, but I have noticed a change in me. I am finding I want to turn it off. Is five and 1/2 years of letting MBC be at the forefront of my thoughts simply too long? Have I reached the so-called “breaking point” where it is all more than I can handle? I have been slowly pulling away from it, no longer stopping for those stories of people needing help, needing someone to hear them. I feel guilty for being selfish in my needs when their needs are as important as mine. Yet, I am finding I want to forget about cancer, pretend I am the old Lisa. I want to not be living day to day worrying about my every ache and pain, fearing that my coughing or my recent lower and upper back pain is my disease saying, “Ha ha, you are really screwed now”.
Over the last few months, I have been getting the momentary sense that I am paralyzed. I can’t move because I feel unenthusiastic or unmotivated to do much of anything—stupid thoughts of death creeping in to steal my joy, my sense of worth. It is short-lived, but I know that if it takes hold I won’t be able to find my way out. So I switch gears making myself get up and get going. I feel like I am walking too close to the edge of despair where a person finds they are drowning and can’t save themselves, a place I have never been and don’t ever want to be. So, I will find the comfort I need through pretending I am fine because sometimes a person needs a vacation from cancer.
Staying busy has always helped lessen the negative thoughts that go with my situation. So that is what I intend to do. Soon the decorations will come down from the attic and adorn my home, all my children will be physically here, and I will see another Christmas—my 6th since my induction into the metastatic world. I will enjoy every minute of it. For the next month, I am going to do my best to close the door on my disease, so if you don’t hear from me in December, don’t worry, I am just pretending I am normal.
I made it passed 54 birthdays. I have been able to witness my face change as the gravity of our earth pulls without mercy causing me to agree that plastic surgery might not be such an over-the-top procedure of self-consumed vanity after all.
My birthday came without a lot of fanfare, but to me it was the greatest of days. And with the greatest of days come the other days where I am tired of worrying about dying. Every day it seems in social media someone has died. Poof! They are extinguished from existence. We are all so fragile.
Death is final. It is not like losing a job where you get to pull yourself together and start fresh and find an employer who sees something in you that others did not.
A person dying cannot say, “Hold up, I need a few more days”. Death comes and overtakes you without an apology—not that it can give one—and without any concern for what you needed to finish before your heart no longer beats.
I know death is all part of the circle of life and all that soft language that makes death a lighter subject to talk about. But, the unfairness of how some get to live into their 90’s and others don’t get to see their first birthday is simply extreme no matter what kind of reason some people try to attach to it.
Knowing I am dying—not because I am alive but because I have a terminal illness, does make me think sometimes that my exercise routine that I started in August is a waste of time. I mean, I could be doing something else with that time, but I keep doing it anyway for the “just in case I keep living” scenario or maybe it is partly because I want to pretend I am fine.
Lately, the metastatic social groups on Facebook I follow have caused me to want to stop looking at my newsfeed. All the sad stories of struggle and sadness can be overwhelming. Since 2013, I have consumed as much information as I could about my disease, learning from others in my desire to keep hope alive. In the beginning I jumped right in and embraced those stories and let them be a part of my life, but I have noticed a change in me. I am finding I want to turn it off. Is five and 1/2 years of letting MBC be at the forefront of my thoughts simply too long? Have I reached the so-called “breaking point” where it is all more than I can handle? I have been slowly pulling away from it, no longer stopping for those stories of people needing help, needing someone to hear them. I feel guilty for being selfish in my needs when their needs are as important as mine. Yet, I am finding I want to forget about cancer, pretend I am the old Lisa. I want to not be living day to day worrying about my every ache and pain, fearing that my coughing or my recent lower and upper back pain is my disease saying, “Ha ha, you are really screwed now”.
Over the last few months, I have been getting the momentary sense that I am paralyzed. I can’t move because I feel unenthusiastic or unmotivated to do much of anything—stupid thoughts of death creeping in to steal my joy, my sense of worth. It is short-lived, but I know that if it takes hold I won’t be able to find my way out. So I switch gears making myself get up and get going. I feel like I am walking too close to the edge of despair where a person finds they are drowning and can’t save themselves, a place I have never been and don’t ever want to be. So, I will find the comfort I need through pretending I am fine because sometimes a person needs a vacation from cancer.
Staying busy has always helped lessen the negative thoughts that go with my situation. So that is what I intend to do. Soon the decorations will come down from the attic and adorn my home, all my children will be physically here, and I will see another Christmas—my 6th since my induction into the metastatic world. I will enjoy every minute of it. For the next month, I am going to do my best to close the door on my disease, so if you don’t hear from me in December, don’t worry, I am just pretending I am normal.
No comments:
Post a Comment